POMONA : Armed Man Held in Bomb Blast on Cal Poly Campus

A man who claimed he was a physicist was arrested by campus police at Cal Poly Pomona early Wednesday after he was seen loitering around a building where a pipe bomb had gone off a day earlier, authorities said.

Michael Joel Whitney, 35, of Moreno Valley in Riverside County was wearing jeans, a sport coat and carrying two 12-inch daggers in scabbards around his waist when arrested. Police also found two loaded guns in his car and a bottle of flammable liquid labeled chloroform wedged inside a vent in the new campus Administration Building, where the incendiary device was discovered Tuesday.

Whitney was booked on suspicion of possession of a loaded firearm and two unlawful weapons at the county sheriff’s station in Walnut, campus police Sgt. Dale Gadd said. Police say Whitney is also a suspect in Tuesday’s pipe bomb incident. Cal Poly officials say there is no evidence that Whitney has a physics degree or that he attended or worked at Cal Poly Pomona.